Mary Barra will be the first woman to lead a U.S. car company. / File / Associated Press

Written by

Dee-Ann Durbin and Tom Krisher

Associated Press

Mary Barra has spent the past three years as General Motors’ product chief, making cars that drive better, last longer and look good in showrooms.

Now she will take on an even bigger job. On Tuesday, the board named the 33-year company veteran CEO, making her the first woman to lead a U.S. car company.

Barra replaces Dan Akerson, who moved up retirement plans by several months to help his wife, Karin, battle advanced cancer.

When Barra, 51, starts her new job Jan. 15, she will lead a company that has made nearly $20 billion since emerging from bankruptcy in 2010, much of it from the cars and trucks she helped develop. But she still faces challenges of paring down GM’s costs and winning over buyers in international markets such as India and South America.

Here are some things you may not know about the GM veteran:

Deep ties

Barra was born and raised in the Detroit suburbs and steeped in the car industry. Her father was a die maker at GM for 39 years. She went to college at General Motors Institute (now Kettering University), a sort of automotive preparatory school in Flint, where she earned a bachelor’s of science in electrical engineering and began her GM career as part of a student co-op program. Her first job, at 18, was at the Michigan plant that made the Pontiac Fiero.

No bean counter

Barra is the first engineer to run GM since CEO Bob Stempel left in 1992. The two men who followed Stempel — Rick Wagoner and Fritz Henderson — were finance executives. Ed Whitacre and Dan Akerson, who led GM through bankruptcy, were brought in from telecommunications and finance by the federal government. Barra has worked in about every corner of GM, but has little experience in finance and the sales and marketing of cars and trucks, two key areas she’ll have to watch as CEO. Whitacre, who promoted her to lead human resources, isn’t worried.

“This is a smart lady,” he said. “She can overcome all that. And what she doesn’t know, she’ll pick up quite quickly.”

Pay raise?

As GM’s product chief, Barra has made less than comparable executives at other companies, according to the company’s compensation committee. That’s partly because the government was capping executive salaries while it owned part of GM. On Monday, the government sold the last of its GM shares. Akerson said Tuesday that the company plans to change its salary metrics to focus more on vehicle quality. Barra’s compensation totaled $4.85 million last year, according to GM’s latest proxy statement. That included a $750,000 base salary plus stock units.

Family matters

Many GM insiders say Barra admirably balances her work and home lives. She is married with two teenage children. She has been known to end meetings to go pick up her kids, and when they were young their artwork was proudly displayed in her office. In an interview with Stanford’s alumni magazine, she said she drove a Cadillac Escalade because it had room for her son’s hockey gear.

Barra also developed a strong relationship with Akerson.

“I don’t want to get too corny here, but it was almost like watching your daughter graduate from college,” Akerson said of telling told Barra she would be GM’s next CEO.

Car crazy

Barra’s first car was a Chevette, which she bought to get to and from her job at the plant. These days, she tools around in a new Cadillac CTS, one of several cars that have been released during her time as GM’s global product chief. But her real love is the sporty Camaro. She and her husband have owned several.